"The NIE is a product of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which is "composed of senior analysts within the intelligence community and substantive experts from the public and private sector, who shall be appointed by, report to, and serve at the pleasure of, the Director of National Intelligence."
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The Council is charged with "produc[ing] national intelligence estimates for the United States Government, including alternative views held by elements of the intelligence community.
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Back in 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate was released which all but absolved Iran of suspicions that it was on course to develop nuclear weapons. Rich Lowry writes

In November 2007, US intelligence agencies wrote a National Intelligence Estimate concluding, "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." . .

The 2007 NIE had a very circumscribed definition of a weapons program, but it included "covert conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work." Exactly what Qom is for. What do the Iranians have to do to convince US intelligence they have a weapons program?
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The report was widely criticized by even the Europeans. Nevertheless, it gave cover to liberals - including Barack Obama - to downplay the threat from Iran. Now we know that the "secret" enrichment plant at Qom was already known by the intelligence community when the 2007 report was drafted.

snip

The NIE was also criticized as being a hyper-partisan document whose drafting was done by three men who opposed a firm stance towards Iran and had an axe to grind - not with Iran-but with George Bush." They are "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials, according to an intelligence source. "
They are Tom Fingar,Vann Van Diepen,Kenneth Brill .

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The unholy three were outed by the Wall Street Journal back in 2007:
Our own "confidence" is not heightened by the fact that the NIE's main authors include three former State Department officials with previous reputations as "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials," according to an intelligence source.
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Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research;
Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and
Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
snip
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/where_are_the_three_stooges_wh.html